The Dates

Chapter One: Introduction

Time Day was the day that changed my life. Why couldn't we have been normal? Why couldn't our Dates have been sometime ninety years into the future like most other children? Why couldn't our Dates have even been five years into the future like a few other unlucky teenagers?  But no, we just couldn't be normal. It's fitting that the stereotypical rebels who always go against society somehow managed to rebel against death itself.
The 29th of February is Time Day. Every kid who turned fifteen after the previous Time Day would get their Date, the day they would die, on the next Time Day. The Date would appear on a person's arm, just like a tattoo. There's a party every Time Day with a countdown to the second the Dates appear on kids' arms, but my friends and I ditched it to hang out instead. I'd much rather find out when we all were going to die in private rather than surrounded on all sides by people.
I met Helena the first day of fourth grade when she was looking for the music room. The first thing I noticed were her pale purple eyes. Purple wasn't the rarest eye color, but they still stood out, especially against her dark skin. Helena is the most outgoing of us all. That really isn't saying much, but you know what I mean. She doesn't act at all self conscious and is completely willing to put herself out in front of people. Rules have no place in Helena's world. She'll take any opportunity presented to her to break a rule or antagonize a teacher. She was the one who taught me about lying and faking doing my homework. That really came in handy once we got to high school. I mean, I know that I'm fairly smart, and I do care about my grades, but there are so many better things to do than homework. I have one chance to live with only one chance to do everything and then I'll be dead for eternity so why waste time on things like homework? She also told me once that she didn't feel emotion. The more I got to know her, the more I believed that. She does have her moments of being caring or excited that make me realize she is still human, but she mostly just looks at life like a joke. Now a joke is typically looked at as happy and lighthearted, but the most important thing to know about our friend group is that nothing is ever happy or lighthearted. Our jokes are all about how awful the world is or death or something like that. They're funny to us, and it doesn't do any good to cry about the world so we may as well laugh about it.
I met Danielle next when we had to sit next to each other in science class. We're both massive science nerds so we bonded over that almost instantly. She was made of all shades of brown with golden brown eyes, long, dark, wavy hair, and tanned skin. I tried to get Danielle to do my homework for me when I first met her, but she's too much of a stickler for the rules for that. While I'm smart but absolutely hate school and learning, she loves to go to school. Her love of school did decrease once we finished eighth grade, but doesn't everyone's? One could probably guess what this means for both of our grades. She scores highly while I'm at the bottom of my class. She always tells me that I should try harder, but I really don't have the effort. Her love of school and fear of punishment or stepping out of line will usually end with her pitted against Helena. A person would think that her constant bickering with Helena, who always says what she feels with little thought for how it affects others, would lead to them not being as close as the rest of us are. However, it is exactly the opposite. She can take whatever Helena says to her and occasionally, fire back with something just as bad. She is the strongest person I know yet is still fairly reserved around other people.
Ashley was the last person that I met out of the four. Ashley is the most shy and innocent out of us all. She also panics the most about things so we've all gotten used to calming her down. Now, Ashley panic is much different from normal panic. Hyperventilating is a sign of only mild panic. Sometimes she gets so stressed to the point that she's borderline delirious and just spouts nonsense. It really is amusing so, Helena and I sometimes just lose it while trying to help her. Does that make us bad people? Well, that's just another reason to add to the hundreds. Ashley is also the youngest of the four of us which is really fitting. Ashely is more than willing to go full therapist mode, but she's rarely the one who's doing the helping. Mostly she's just being helped by Danielle or I. Danielle isn't as comfortable with other people's emotions, so more often than not, I'm the one helping Ashley. One of the most surprising moments of my life was when I went to an audition for the school play and saw Ashley there. As it turns out, she loves theatre and uses it as a way to get out all her nervous energy, and believe me, she has a lot.  She's also one of the most philosophical people I've ever met. We spent an entire night at one of our sleepovers doing blind makeup challenges and contemplating nature versus nurture. You know, normal teenage girl sleepover activities.
Together we're the most depressed/depressing, messed up messes you've ever seen. We're the stereotypical nerdy art students who sit in the corner at lunch. Actually, that stereotype really isn't funny because we literally do sit in the corner on the opposite side of the cafeteria than everyone else. And when I say messed up, I mean that we have probably about seven mental disorders between the four of us. I mean, if we weren't so closed of and paranoid, group therapy would be great. Whenever we get together it really is just a long, informal session of group therapy to be honest.

Author's Note:
Hi! This is my first time writing anything so I decided to post it to see what would happen. Feel free to leave any criticism, as it really helps me improve my writing. I hope you enjoy!